The Night Singer
A Novel
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4.3 • 38 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The #1 international crime series from Sweden!
An island never forgets -- especially if you're the daughter of a murderer
Police detective Hannah Duncker didn’t expect to return to her native Öland. She fled after her father’s murder conviction and returns to make peace with her shame. She has a new job with the local police and a nosy new partner. A fifteen-year-old’s death catapults her into a murder investigation that resurrects ghosts from her previous life. As she hunts for the truth, she must confront the people she abandoned. Not all are pleased to see her back home, and she soon learns that digging through the past comes with consequences.
Author Johanna Mo crafts a breakneck island noir where secrets linger, guilt stains, and collective memory is long and unforgiving. Propulsive and poignant, The Night Singer explores the fallout of when good people do bad things.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Police detective Hanna Duncker, the heroine of Swedish author Mo's welcome English-language debut and series launch, has just moved from Stockholm to Kalmar on the island of Öland, near where she grew up. Hanna's first case on the local force is the murder of the 15-year-old son of one of her childhood friends. Flashbacks to the victim's last day illuminate the troubled teen's life, and Mo does a good job portraying a host of people with long memories, resentments, and a penchant for gossip. Hanna's fraught personal history adds depth: her father was found guilty of a particularly violent crime when she was a girl, and the story may be deeper than the facts suggest. The plot moves slowly at times, lingering, for example, on minor characters like Duncker's insipid new partner, Erik Lindgren, but readers will readily engage with Hanna, a no-nonsense, dogged, and thoughtful investigator. Mo is off to a strong start.
Customer Reviews
Compassion
The story asks many great questions, a few are answered by fate a few by genuine desire to discover.
There is a sense of threading in frigid waters, the warmth of compassion seems rare and relegated to peripheral characters…